Charmed Life

I read this book as part of The Chronicles of Chrestomanci Volume I
omnibus, which is the book reflected in the sidebar information.

Cat Chant is, in the grand tradition of books of this sort, an orphan.
Unlike most of these books, however, he has a surviving elder sister,
Gwendolen, to whom he is deeply devoted. Gwendolen is the one who's a
witch; Cat has no apparent magic ability whatsoever. They live together
with a foster mother in a neighborhood of people with minor magical talent
until they discover, among their parents' possessions, three letters from
a person named Chrestomanci. Cat isn't told just who Chrestomanci is, but
he's clearly someone incredibly important. Using the letters as
justification, Gwendolen contacts Chrestomanci, and when they both are
invited to live with Chrestomanci as part of his household, the obvious
assumption is that it's because of her magical ability and their good
family name.

That's the opening of a fast-moving and twisty young-adult tale about a
world with widespread magic and an unusual magical governance structure.
It reads, at times, very much like a boarding school story, and I can see
the reason for the renewed marketing of this series after Harry Potter
became a phenomenon. (I think it's rather more interesting, and rather
less annoying, than Harry Potter, but then I have an
unusually poor opinion of that series.)
Gwendolen, by the time they reach Chrestomanci's household, has a
ridiculously high opinion of herself and starts feuds with both
Chrestomanci's own children and Chrestomanci himself. Cat, meanwhile, is
torn between his deep loyalty to his sister and his natural tendency to be
decent to everyone, which eventually translates into a growing attraction
to the strange household in which he finds himself.

This is one of those books in which the plot is driven partly by
characters withholding vital information from each other, but it's one of
the better-handled and better-justified versions of that I've seen. I
normally hate that plot construction, but here, while I found it annoying
in places, I think it mostly worked. The downside is that the reader is
likely to get quite frustrated with the adults and their refusal to
explain or to do anything about obvious problems; the upside is that the
startling finale gains a lot of emotional weight and is able to turn the
story inside-out. There's a lot of stressful childish nastiness in the
middle, and I think I could have done without some of that, but it does
build a lot of reader sympathy for Cat.

I think two things make this book: Chrestomanci and the world building.
Chrestomanci himself is a great character, particularly for a young adult
novel and when seen through the eyes of a young protagonist. He avoids
being the typical adult mentor figure, and his air of bemused abstraction
creates a lot of interesting layers and realizations through the story.
It builds an aura of both ability and distance that's unlike the normal
mentor figure. The world background at first seems a touch silly, but it
gains depth through small touches and consistent detail. The magic system
is neither numinous nor RPG-detailed and can seem a bit flippant
— comparisons with Harry Potter work here as well
— but it hangs together well and is serious enough to support
some moments of real awe and fear.

This is an occasionally frustrating book, but it's still a fun, light
read, with good pacing. Recommended if you're looking for a light take on
magical schools, particularly if you're looking for something akin to
Harry Potter.

Followed by The Magicians of Caprona, although the omnibus that I
read packages it with The Lives of Christopher Chant, the fourth
book of the series in publication order.